Technicalities
by Ubuntista
Summary: Leia Adler's life from the start of her education at Starfleet... through the next 10 years. NOTE: Blatantly AU - disregards many TOS events. P
1. Chapter 1

Star Trek belongs to Paramount and Gene Roddenberry. Anything you don't recognize is mine, all else is theirs. Lucky...

Also... Leia Organa isn't mine either... The name's just awfully pretty.

Intro.

Leia Adler trembled as she took leave of her parents at the door to the shuttle. Her hands shook as she reached to embrace her mother and father one last time, and afterwards she abruptly pulled away and climbed in. That's it; she was on her way.

Leia was a Terran, 17 years old, and on her way to Starfleet Academy, where she was to study scientific research and computer dynamics. She was small, diminutive, with long reddish hair and large brown eyes. Starfleet had contacted her the year before on the subject of her high intelligence and definite potential - she had been accepted with full scholarship.

Leia settled in her chair on the small shuttle. Around her sat an assortment of others, all going from Earth to Starfleet Academy. Some looked to her to be professors, there were one or two workers, and a few parents going to visit their children. Leia knew her parents were important diplomats on Earth and would probably not be able to find time to visit her any time soon. She sighed, and settled into her (rather gloomy) thoughts.

Far too soon for her liking, noises from the shuttle's engines told her they were approaching. She stretched and got up, and disembarked. Looking around, she found herself in a large airy hall, with high ceilings and soft glowing lights. Starfleet Academy.

Ch. 1.

Leia took in her surroundings with wide eyes. A sign directly in front of her read "Cadets" and pointed to the right, into an adjoining room. She turned, and with a deep sense of "well, here goes nothing", entered the room. Inside were a number of young persons, both male, female, Human, Vulcan, Betelgeusian, Arcturan, Deltan, and many other types which she didn't know the name of.

She sat quietly in the corner and waited until a senior officer came in and separated the throng into their divisions. "Sciences division to the right, Operations division to the left, Command division," - these were already in uniform and seemed to be a number of years older than the rest - "come with me."

Leia obediently went into the right room with 3 others, and they all sat down in the front row of a series of seats, facing a podium. She sneaked a look at the others - one was a lanky blue-eyed Deltan boy; the second was a Human Chinese girl; the third was a tall Vulcan. She smiled to herself - this was going to be interesting.

Suddenly a door burst open on the side of the room. A youngish looking officer entered, looking flustered. "Pardon me," she said breathlessly, "I was held up. My name is Lieutenant Commander Saria, I'll be in charge of you for your first few weeks at Starfleet. Let me just get your names straight," she smiled in a friendly manner, "And we can get started. Hmmm... Let me see now..." She consulted a paper on her clipboard. "Who here is Lorin?" The Deltan stood up.

"Your first name?" she queried.

The boy smiled shyly. "Sah, Lieutenant Commander Saria."

"Very good...No need for the formality, though. And... Chang?" she smiled at the girl.

The girl stood up. "Emily, ma'am."

"Lovely... Sareku?"

The Vulcan stood. "That is my patronymic, ma'am. My surname is unpronouncable by Humans."

Saria rolled her eyes, playfully. "Yes, my boy, that's why we used the patronymic in the first place. Your name, please?"

"Spock," he said matter-of-factly, and sat down.

"Lovely... And you must be Adler," said Saria.

Leia stood, gulped, nodded, and breathlessly gasped out, "Leia's my first name." She was still very excited and nervous.

Saria smiled. "Leia? Like the Alderaanian princess?"

"I was named after her," Leia mumbled.

Saria clapped her hands once, and grinned. "Well, looks like we're off to a good start! We've decided to put you four together since you're all approximately the same age, studying the same thing, and coming new to Starfleet - it wouldn't be fun to room with someone twice your age, rank, and experience, would it?" Her eyes twinkled. "I'll take you to your quarters - you have a few hours to get yourself set up, refreshed, and mentally ready before I take you to your first class. Come along!" She swept out of the room, and the 4 followed.

After what Leia considered to be miles of unnecessary hallways ('After all,' she thought, 'We're exhausted enough after all the introductions and sortings and what-nots, so why did the rooms have to be so far?'), Saria came to a stop in front of two doors. One said "cha'Sarek + Lorin", the other "Chang + Adler". "Here are your quarters - be in the hall at 1400 hours, I'll be waiting there." She then turned on her heel and hurried off.

"Well," said Emily slowly, "I suppose we should check it out."

"Yeah," said Sah. He pushed open the boys' door and, beckoning, entered the room. The others followed.

After he looked around the room and took peeks into the closets and the bathroom, he nodded his approval. "It is clean, and nice and roomy. More so than I expected," he said.

"It is only logical that Starfleet would take passable care of us," said Spock with a raised eyebrow. Emily and Leia sighed. Vulcans... They knew the type. They could be incredibly annoying sometimes.

After a similar tour and inspection of the girls' quarters, the four split up and went to organize their belongings. Leia flopped onto her bed.

"Say, Emily... What think you of the boys?"

"The boys?" Emily giggled. "They seem nice enough." Suddenly she sat up with a grin. "Poor Sah - stuck with that uptight ol' Vulcan... What're the odds he'll go mad in a week?"

Leia grinned. "About 70 percent. 90 if you make it two weeks." The girls collapsed, laughing the stress off. After pulling themselves together (which did take a while), they dressed in their new uniforms, and went outside to wait for the boys.

Emily looked distastefully at her uniform. It was a short mini-dress made of silvery material with shorts underneath. It had a blue symbol on the left side, and was worn with knee-high black boots. "These are horrific," she said explosively, "I don't wonder any guy walking past us will make a pass at us in this!!"

"Make a pass at you?" said Sah from behind her. She jumped. He tilted his head appraisingly. "I see nothing to merit that."

Emily frowned. "I didn't ask _you_, Deltan."

Sah grinned and swatted at her shoulder. "I'm kidding. You look lovely." He offered her his arm, and she accepted it, still half-grumbling but very pleased. After all, Deltans were known for their intense attractiveness, and Emily wasn't about to complain.

Leia sighed. She wasn't too crazy about the Vulcan guy. But Emily and Sah had already turned the corner so she resigned herself to walking with him. "Hi... Spock, wasn't it?" she asked.

Spock inclined his head. "Yes. And you're Leia." It was more a statement than a question.

She nodded. He offered his hand and she shook it. He could almost see the question mark above her head, but didn't address it. "So... what are you studying here?"

"I would like to be a science officer. It sounds...interesting. I'll study whatever is needed to achieve that," said Spock, a look of what could almost be called "toned-down excitement" coming into his eyes.

She smiled. This she could deal with. "That _is_ cool!" she exclaimed. "I always was interested in research and probing."

"Oh?" said Spock, tilting his head and raising an eyebrow.

"Mmhmm."

"Fascinating." He thought a moment. "Do you know what the others are studying?"

"Emily signed up for training as a nurse, so we won't be seeing much of her. I don't know about Sah." She laughed. "At least we're together... Something tells me it'll be good to have you around."

"Indeed...?" said Spock, trying to understand what she meant.

"Well," Leia explained, "Vulcans are known for their intelligence. I won't mind a study partner who can run circles around me. I can learn from you that way."

Spock looked even more confused. "Why would I want to run circles around you?" He stopped her with an outstretched arm and then proceeded to jog around her a few times. "How does that help?"

Leia laughed again. 'Hey, this Vulcan isn't so bad after all!' she thought. "It's a phrase... it means that you'll be academically so much more ahead that in order to let me keep up, your brain can run metaphorical circles around mine while waiting for it to catch up."

Spock was silent for the rest of the way, which, Leia now saw, wasn't all that far after all. She was vaguely disappointed, wanting to hear his Vulcan, logical comments about what she had said. As they approached the classroom, he turned to her and without any preamble said, "Yes. I think I understand your Human phrase now. Fascinating idea." He then walked in to the room. She stood outside, her mouth open. 'Maybe he isn't all that wonderful... but I'll definitely be able to live with him and his weird thoughts."


	2. Chapter 2

Don't own anything you recognise.

Chapter 2: Lessons

Lt. Cmdr. Saria was waiting for them inside the room. On the desk a the front were 4 large stacks of papers, books, and notes, and as the four entered the room each picked theirs out and took a seat. Saria smiled, pleased at the docility of her new students.

"Ok, so you obviously figured out whose papers these are. Now, before you go into your separate classes, you have to undergo Basic Training. This is a sort of overall course, covering basic needs of any Starfleet student, and will take one month. That's what all this stuff is, you see, it's all the same. If you open the folder," here she gestured at the four, and they hurriedly opened it, "you will see six main subjects: Biosurvey, Computers, Physiomathics, First Aid, Engineering, and Stellar Physics. In addition to the main courses, you will also be taught Interlingua, as well as undergo physical training. For this month you will be under my jurisdiction, therefore please make it a point to complete assignments and arrive on time to lessons. Let us start with an overview."

Sah raised his hand. "If you please – all these subjects covered in the Basic Training , will they be all we need before we are packed off to our specific courses?"

Saria laughed. "Of course! They don't expect you to know anything, so don't worry about entrance exams or anything of the sort. You're in – and they really won't throw you out unless you really make life difficult on them. Any other questions?" No one moved. "Great. Let's start. Please open your books to page 1, and read the description of methane-based life forms on the planet Galiana."

Later that evening, Leia and Emily were sitting on their beds in their rooms. Leia had set out her books in a circle around her and was reading at the end of the book, having found an interesting section on the language capabilities of Algolian young (_"Algolians mature after 70 years, and are considered "young" for the first 50 years of their life.")_ Emily was painting her toenails, her books having been dropped at the end of the bed after class and promptly forgotten.

"Hey Leia."

"Mmm?"

"D'you think this Basic Training thing will be hard?"

Leia pried herself off from the book, and looked up. "Say what?"

"I said, Madame Bookworm, do you think Basic Training will be hard?"

Leia shrugged. "I don't know, the book seems straightforward enough, and we're only covering a bit of each subject – I mean, don't you think they know we covered all this in classes in school? They're only brushing up and padding where it needs, you know?"

Emily nodded. "Yeah. I'm a bit wary of the physical training bit, though. I'm studying to be a nurse, not one of those disposable red shirts!"

"Yeah, I was worried for a while there too. But, if you had taken the 30 seconds necessary to see what we have in this folder, you would have realised it just involves a couple weekly hours of lap swimming and running, and a bit of weights to prepare us for unconventional gravity."

"'Unconditional gravity', my hat. They just want us not to be sitting down on our bottoms all day."

Leia giggled. "That too!"

There was a moment of silence. Then Emily said, "You know, maybe we'll go check out this pool, do a few laps, you know, show off a bit."

Leia raised an eyebrow. "Show off?"

"Stop it!" Emily shrieked, laughing. "You look like some demented Vulcan! Go on, get into that bathing suit and let's go blind a few unknowing cadets."

Leia didn't have much choice.

The two girls had changed into a long one-piece bathing suit, silver like everything else, and followed signs to the pool. Leia shook her long hair out of the braid, and walked in, while Emily ran around to the deep end, and, in a childish display, whooped and jumped in. But before she hit the water, someone yelled "Aaaughhhh!"

Leia quickly swam over. Emily was blushing bright red and had covered her face with her hands. A young man, a couple years older than the girls, wearing a yellow suit much like theirs, was standing, looking dazed, in the water.

"Leia, he's in the _Command Division_!" whispered Emily. "I'm so embarrassed. Why do things like this always happen to me!"

The man meanwhile had shaken his head and sort of come to his senses. "Ah. Hello. Nice of you to drop in, though you might have wanted to do that a few feet to the side." He smiled at Emily's shamed countenance, and held out his hand. "I'm Jim. Jim Kirk. New students, eh?"

Leia spoke up for her bashful friend. "I'm Leia Adler, and she's Emily Chang. We're new here, yeah."

"And we're sorry about that, really we are!" Emily piped up.

Jim laughed. "Hey, no worries, it's fine. And, I know that Basic Training thing can get really stuffy sometimes - don't hesitate to look for me if you need anything, I passed pretty well." With that he got out, threw his towel around his shoulders, and left.

Emily giggled hysterically. "I bet he did, he's in _Command Division_!" she gasped out to Leia quietly after he had left.

"Calm down! It's fine, just next time," here Leia choked on the cliche, "look before you leap." She stuck her tongue out.

"Oh!" Emily said again. "Ohhhhh!"

"GET OVER IT!"

A couple days later, Leia, Sah, Spock, and Emily were studying for their first exams. Emily was outside with Sah, enjoying the nice day ("Yeah, right." thought Leia), and Spock was nowhere to be seen. Leia herself was in the Library, sitting in a corner with approximately 6 large tomes spread out around her, a mess of papers with tiny handwriting on it, and a pair of bioptic magnifiers perched on the tip of her nose. She pored over the books, as she had been for the last few hours, without moving anything except her eyes. People passed by her, glancing over, and yet she showed no indication of having registered their presence.

After a while, she sat back, tiredly, letting the book she had been reading fall to the floor with a "floomp". She stretched and tied her hair up messily, as it had been annoying her for the last half-hour.

"Sheesh" she muttered to herself. "How big is my brain supposed to be to hold so much information?"

"Human brains, at an average of 1400cc, are more than sufficient to capture the information necessary for this exam. If this were not true, there would be no humans in higher Starfleet ranks."

"Oh boy." thought Leia. "Here we go." She sighed, and turned towards the voice. "Hello, Spock."

Spock, who was sitting at the nearby table with his head propped on his hands, inclined his head to her. "And greetings to you. I see you have been studying."

"Well, duh." Leia spread her hands out around her.

"Have you finished the section on Computer Qualifications?" Spock asked, head tilted at a particularly large and ornate book, lying as far away from her as possible.

"No, that stuff is ridiculous. I mean, reading it through - I bet they set that as reading for new cadets to see if they can actually understand what's written there. And I consider myself _good_ at that stuff anyways."

He bent down and picked it up. "I finished it already. I could help you, if you'd accept the help of a 'goddamn pointy-eared goblin'." He looked almost amused.

"Hey!" Leia said defensively. "Not my words, Emily's. She doesn't get aliens. And sure, I'd much appreciate a bit of help here." She smiled up at him.

He nodded and sat down beside her. "Of course. So, firstly, the book is descriptive only of one certain method of Computer Qualification, the one they expect cadets aiming for Science Officer to pass at the end of this year, the C-3..."

Leia settled down next to him. Sure, he can be terribly annoying, but as a study partner, there's nothing like a Vulcan.

Emily came in, threw her bookbag into a corner, and sat down on the bed, glowing.

"Leia! Leia!" she cried. "Oh, that Sah! He is just..." she sighed "Divine."

Leia raised her eyebrow. "Divine? I'd say not - he's just a bloody Deltan." She returned to her book.

Emily ran around to Leia's bed, and tugged on her sleeve. "Come on, Leia, don't you think he's gorgeous?" Leia shook her head, still immersed in her book. Emily grinned mischievously. "I'll bet you like the pointy-eared--"

"DON'T CALL HIM THAT!" Leia yelled, turning around quickly. She then proceeded in a whisper. "He heard that, dammit!"

"He what?"

"He heard you when you called him that! I had to apologise! It was so embarrassing!"

Emily shook her head. "Why would you care? I mean, he's just another guy. Alien, too!"

"Your Sah's an alien." Leia said slyly.

"Oh shut it. The guy's a Vulcan, for heaven's sake! Sheesh, you have really bad taste in guys!"

Leia's mouth fell open. "Who said anything about that?!"

Emily laughed. "Ah, gotcha!"

"Emily CHANG! Grow up!" Leia winced. "Sure," she thought to herself, "his features are rather striking, but nuh-uh, I do not like _like_ Vulcans!"


End file.
